ZadekpediaThe National Constitution Center is an organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dedicated to educating the public about the meaning and importance of the Constitution. Its officers and guests describe it as chartered or funded by Congress for that purpose, and as a nonpartisan institution. Across four episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, guests associated with the Center describe its educational mission, its Interactive Constitution, and two projects in which it commissioned libertarian, progressive, and conservative teams to draft alternative constitutional visions.
Mission and location
Sheldon Gilbert, identified as Vice President for Content and Development at the National Constitution Center, traces the Center’s origin to the Reagan administration, when Congress issued a resolution calling for an organization with the singular purpose of educating the American public about the meaning and importance of the Constitution Revenge of the Pen and the Phone (2018). He says the Center is located on Independence Mall, across from Independence Hall, where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were signed, and describes it as a national platform for teaching the world about the Constitution.
Bob Zadek, introducing Timothy Sandefur, says the Center is located in Philadelphia and has a wonderful exhibition, and that it is nonpartisan Timothy Sandefur on The Libertarian Constitution (2021). He attributes to Jeffrey Rosen, the Center’s president, the statement that it is the only organization chartered by Congress to further the understanding and appreciation of the Constitution. In a later episode Zadek calls Rosen the current executive director and says the Center is the only nonprofit organization funded by Congress for the sole and exclusive purpose of increasing awareness and understanding of the Constitution, adding that it offers presentations and an interactive constitution and is the go-to site and physical place in Philadelphia to learn about the Constitution 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022). A companion episode repeats the same description of the Center and its funding 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022). In a further episode Zadek again calls Rosen the executive director or president and the top man, repeats that the Center is the only institution funded by Congress to enhance understanding and appreciation of the Constitution, and says it is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022).
The Interactive Constitution
Gilbert describes the Interactive Constitution, accessible at constitutioncenter.org or by mobile app, as allowing a reader to look up any provision of the constitutional text and then read the top scholars on the right and the left discuss that provision Revenge of the Pen and the Phone (2018). He says the scholars each begin with areas of agreement before moving to matters of debate, presenting conservative and liberal perspectives on the same part of the Constitution, so that readers can see scholars disagreeing without being disagreeable. Zadek calls it a resource where listeners can get a balanced explanation of both sides of an issue, rather than an echo chamber, and says it is a must for anyone visiting Philadelphia or doing online research.
Commissioned constitutional projects
Zadek describes a project in which the Center commissioned three teams of scholars—a libertarian team, a progressive team, and a conservative team—each working independently, to write or rewrite the Constitution in a way more consistent with their respective values Timothy Sandefur on The Libertarian Constitution (2021). He says the teams delivered three different Constitutions that differed dramatically in some respects while remaining more or less consistent with the current Constitution’s structure, and that in many ways the three teams reached very similar conclusions. Timothy Sandefur, Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and a member of the libertarian team, responds that the team rescued the Constitution.
A later project, which Zadek calls the Guardrails of Democracy, asked what is not working in the democratic system and which guardrails have failed or ought to be put in place 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022). Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University and a member of the libertarian team, says he does not work for the Center and cannot speak to its motives, but that the goal was to recognize serious problems with the democratic system in the United States over the last several years, particularly during the 2020 election and its aftermath. He names the other two members of his group as Walter Olson and Clark Neily, both of the Cato Institute. Somin says the Team Libertarian report addressed three aspects of the crisis: immediate threats to the integrity of the electoral system, such as President Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election; ways to empower people to vote with their feet in the federal system and in the private sector; and ways to increase participation in governance, particularly by strengthening the jury system, which he says the founding fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville regarded as a central mechanism for ordinary people to participate in government.
A companion episode repeats Zadek’s introduction of the same project and his description of the three teams 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022). In it he describes Somin as a professor of law at George Mason University who focuses on constitutional law, property law, and the study of everyday people in representative governance, and cites Somin’s book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.
Across episodes
The Center recurs across four episodes, but the episodes show no development in how it is treated: each appearance is an introduction of the institution and of a guest connected to one of its projects. The 2018 episode presents the Center through Gilbert and the Interactive Constitution Revenge of the Pen and the Phone (2018); the 2021 episode presents the constitutional-rewriting project through Sandefur Timothy Sandefur on The Libertarian Constitution (2021); the two 2022 episodes present the Guardrails of Democracy project through Somin 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022) 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022); and a further 2022 episode presents the same project through Ned Foley, a member of the progressive team, who holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State University and directs its election law program Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022). Zadek’s framing of the Center—its congressional funding, its Philadelphia location, its nonpartisanship—is repeated rather than revised from episode to episode.